The mouse which had been caught was a pitiful specimen; but the cat rejoices even over a lean mouse.
那只被捕获的老鼠是个可怜的样本；但猫对瘦老鼠也感到高兴。

Who were these Thenardiers?
那泰纳尔家是谁？

Let us say a word or two of them now. We will complete the sketch later on.
让我们现在谈谈他们吧。我们稍后会完整地描述他们。

These beings belonged to that bastard class composed of coarse people who have been successful, and of intelligent people who have descended in the scale, which is between the class called “middle” and the class denominated as “inferior,” and which combines some of the defects of the second with nearly all the vices of the first, without possessing the generous impulse of the workingman nor the honest order of the bourgeois.
这些人属于那个杂类，由粗俗成功的人和降级的聪明人组成，介于被称为“中产阶级”和被称为“下等”的阶级之间，融合了第二类的一些缺点和第一类的几乎所有恶习，却没有工人的慷慨冲动，也没有市民的诚实秩序。

They were of those dwarfed natures which, if a dull fire chances to warm them up, easily become monstrous. —
他们属于那种矮小的本性，如果受到某种迟钝的火焰温暖，很容易变得怪物般。 —

There was in the woman a substratum of the brute, and in the man the material for a blackguard. —
那个女人身上有一种兽性的基质，那个男人具备了当流氓的素质。 —

Both were susceptible, in the highest degree, of the sort of hideous progress which is accomplished in the direction of evil. —
他们两人都极度地容易实现那种在邪恶方向上进行的可怕前进。 —

There exist crab-like souls which are continually retreating towards the darkness, retrograding in life rather than advancing, employing experience to augment their deformity, growing incessantly worse, and becoming more and more impregnated with an ever-augmenting blackness. —
存在着一种螃蟹般的灵魂，它们不断向黑暗退缩，人生后退而非前进，运用经验来增长他们的丑陋，不断变得更糟，更多地充满着与日俱增的黑暗。 —

This man and woman possessed such souls.
这个男人和女人就拥有这样的灵魂。

Thenardier, in particular, was troublesome for a physiognomist. —
特纳迪埃，尤其对面相学家来说是个讨厌的人。 —

One can only look at some men to distrust them; —
有些人只需看一眼就会对他们产生不信任； —

for one feels that they are dark in both directions. —
因为人们感觉到他们在两个方向上都很黑暗。 —

They are uneasy in the rear and threatening in front. There is something of the unknown about them. —
他们在背后焦躁不安，在前面威胁性强。他们身上有一些未知的东西。 —

One can no more answer for what they have done than for what they will do. —
人们对于他们的所作所为不能作出保证，正如对于他们将要做什么也不能。 —

The shadow which they bear in their glance denounces them. —
他们眼神中所承载的阴影在指示着他们。 —

From merely hearing them utter a word or seeing them make a gesture, one obtains a glimpse of sombre secrets in their past and of sombre mysteries in their future.
仅凭听他们说一个字或看到他们做一个手势，人们就能窥视到他们过去的阴暗秘密和未来的阴暗奥秘。

This Thenardier, if he himself was to be believed, had been a soldier– a sergeant, he said. —
这位泰拿尔地主自己所说，曾经是一名士兵 - 他说是一名中士。 —

He had probably been through the campaign of 1815, and had even conducted himself with tolerable valor, it would seem. —
他很可能参加过1815年的战役，而且据说表现得还算勇敢。 —

We shall see later on how much truth there was in this. —
我们将稍后看到其中有多少真实性。 —

The sign of his hostelry was in allusion to one of his feats of arms. —
他旅店的招牌暗示了他某次战功。 —

He had painted it himself; for he knew how to do a little of everything, and badly.
他自己画的招牌；因为他懂得种种技能，但都不怎么样。

It was at the epoch when the ancient classical romance which, after having been Clelie, was no longer anything but Lodoiska, still noble, but ever more and more vulgar, having fallen from Mademoiselle de Scuderi to Madame Bournon-Malarme, and from Madame de Lafayette to Madame Barthelemy-Hadot, was setting the loving hearts of the portresses of Paris aflame, and even ravaging the suburbs to some extent. —
那时候，瓦斯博德都有那时，那个从克莱利变成洛多伊斯卡，变得越来越庸俗，从史库德丽夫人到布尔农-马拉姆太太，从拉斐特夫人到巴泰勒米-哈多特太太的古典浪漫小说正引发巴黎女门卫的热情，甚至在一定程度上肆虐郊区。 —

Madame Thenardier was just intelligent enough to read this sort of books. She lived on them. —
铐兄夫人有足够的智慧读这类书。她靠这些书生活。 —

In them she drowned what brains she possessed. —
她把脑子里有的一切都淹没在这些书里。 —

This had given her, when very young, and even a little later, a sort of pensive attitude towards her husband, a scamp of a certain depth, a ruffian lettered to the extent of the grammar, coarse and fine at one and the same time, but, so far as sentimentalism was concerned, given to the perusal of Pigault-Lebrun, and “in what concerns the sex,” as he said in his jargon–a downright, unmitigated lout. —
使她年轻时甚至稍大一点时对丈夫有了种略带忧郁的态度，这个男人算是个有深度的败类，一个有着语法知识的流氓，同时粗鄙与优雅兼具，但, 就感情主义而言，喜欢阅读皮戈·勒布伦，用他自己的话说-一个彻头彻尾的蠢货。 —

His wife was twelve or fifteen years younger than he was. —
他的妻子比他小十二或十五岁。 —

Later on, when her hair, arranged in a romantically drooping fashion, began to grow gray, when the Magaera began to be developed from the Pamela, the female Thenardier was nothing but a coarse, vicious woman, who had dabbled in stupid romances. —
多年后，当她披着一种浪漫垂暗的发型开始变灰白时，当玛格蕾拉开始由帕梅拉中产生时，这位女泰拿尔地主成了一个粗鲁、邪恶的女人，曾经涉足愚蠢的浪漫小说之中。 —

Now, one cannot read nonsense with impunity. —
现在，一个人不能免受无意义的影响。 —

The result was that her eldest daughter was named Eponine; —
结果是她的大女儿取名为艾柏妮； —

as for the younger, the poor little thing came near being called Gulnare; —
至于年幼的女儿，这个可怜的小家伙差点就被命名为古尔纳雷； —

I know not to what diversion, effected by a romance of Ducray-Dumenil, she owed the fact that she merely bore the name of Azelma.
我不知道她仅仅叫阿泽尔玛这个名字是受杜克雷-迪梅尼尔的一部言情小说的影响。

However, we will remark by the way, everything was not ridiculous and superficial in that curious epoch to which we are alluding, and which may be designated as the anarchy of baptismal names. —
不过我们可以顺便指出，在我们提到的那个奇特时代，并非一切都荒谬肤浅，可能可以称之为洗礼名的无政府状态。 —

By the side of this romantic element which we have just indicated there is the social symptom. —
在我们刚刚指出的浪漫元素之外，还有社会症状存在。 —

It is not rare for the neatherd’s boy nowadays to bear the name of Arthur, Alfred, or Alphonse, and for the vicomte–if there are still any vicomtes–to be called Thomas, Pierre, or Jacques. —
当今牧童的孩子多以亚瑟、阿尔弗雷德或阿方斯之名，而假如现在还有维康特，他们可能被称作托马斯、皮埃尔或雅克。 —

This displacement, which places the “elegant” name on the plebeian and the rustic name on the aristocrat, is nothing else than an eddy of equality. —
这种转移，将“雅致”的名字给予平民，将乡村的名字赋予贵族，不过是平等的涡流。 —

The irresistible penetration of the new inspiration is there as everywhere else. —
新灵感的不可抗力渗透在这里，也如同其他地方一样。 —

Beneath this apparent discord there is a great and a profound thing,– the French Revolution.
在这看似不和谐之下，隐藏着一个伟大而深刻的事物–法国大革命。